THIS week, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee received Cabinet approval for the General Scheme of Sale of Alcohol Bill which sets out to modernise laws that stretch back 200 years and which will allow us to go dancing until 6am and stay boozing until 12.30am every night of the week.
If we choose to do so, obviously.
The argument is that the existing restrictive laws are based on an outdated idea of Ireland’s relationship with alcohol.
We’re modern, sophisticated Europeans now, you see, who sip wine with little side servings of olives and while away the evenings before retiring at a reasonable hour, merry but never messy.
And we’re all mature enough now to be able to say ‘no’ to that extra drink if we’ve had enough. Anyone who’s been to a bar at closing time in Ireland recently knows there’s never a mad, wild-eyed dash to get four pints in before the tills close, like Night of the Living Dead meets Withnail & I.
No siree. There’s no problem here. Our relationship with alcohol in the is country is absolutely healthy and normal.
We’re so sophisticated that Dublin is even reportedly going to get a ‘Night Mayor’, a cross between Batman and Fatboy Slim presumably, and they’ll get to project their logo onto the skyline every evening at dusk to signal the start of the sesh.
I should apologise for my sarcasm. In all fairness, this law won’t affect me personally in any way. I haven’t been in a nightclub since some time in the late 1640s. And I haven’t had a drink in around six months, so none of these new freedoms will affect an old codger like me.
It’s just that I’ve been around these parts for a while. And I see no evidence that Ireland has in any way nuanced and improved its relationship with drink. And Stephen Donnelly apparently received a stark memo from his own department suggesting they agree with me.
It stated: ‘The Department of Health is of the view the proposals in the Sale of Alcohol Bill, particularly those relating to extending opening hours and providing for the sale of alcohol as an amenity, will increase alcohol consumption, increase alcohol health harms and increase the pressure on our health services from illness and disease.’
Unfortunately, Mr Donnelly chose not to share the memo with his colleagues during a Cabinet debate on the topic this week.
The case for the relaxation of rules comes mostly from the business sector. The number of nightclubs in Ireland has reduced significantly in recent years, down from over 500 two decades ago, to 300 in 2009 and only 80 today.
And they’ve had a terrible time during Covid and haven’t recovered since.
But any trip to an A&E on a weekend night will tell you that there’s nothing normal about how we consume alcohol on this little island.
Anecdotally, I have heard lots of reports of the younger generations eschewing drinking for a healthier lifestyle. It seems that our young people are finally beginning to see through a lot of the toxic nonsense that surrounds our obsession with booze.
So, in my view, these new laws are a step in the wrong direction.
We’re not Spain. We’re not Berlin. And at the risk of being appointed the Minister For Zero Craic, I thought there was nothing wrong with our existing licensing laws and the limits they placed on our appetites.
I just wish our officials would find imaginative ways to support a generational shift away from boozing. Now there’s something I’d raise a Virgin Mojito to.
Sinking to a new low
YOU might have seen Elon Musk taking over Twitter there during the week. He arrived at HQ carrying a sink, accompanying this with the line – ‘let that sink in’.
This is what amounts to wit in the age of the internet tycoon, ladies and gentlemen.
People came out in their millions to complain about how Twitter is now a toxic cesspool, which is only going to get worse under Musk’s tenure, as be began firing anti-hate speech moderators and other noble staffers left and right.
Unfortunately, everyone went on Twitter to give out about Musk, the equivalent to driving out to the M50 to stand on the hard shoulder giving out about cars.
The platform is now like one big Eye of Sauron, whizzing around in hyperspace complaining about itself. Just as we’ve accepted a certain relationship with alcohol in Ireland, we have also accepted that a small set of egomaniacal billionaires have such a hold on all our attention and much of our personal data, that we continue to volunteer up for free.
Of course, I know that the best way to stop contributing to this toxic mess is to simply delete my account.
And I will. Any day now. After I send this one tweet first ….
Out with the bathwater
IT was with a heavy (and smelly) heart I read the news during the week that the world’s dirtiest man has died. The Iranian hermit was 94 and refused to use soap and water for half a century, fearing it would make him sick. In the end, he succumbed to the pressure and had a bath. A short time later, he became ill and died.
As anyone who has even got into a debate on Twitter should know, there’s a lot to be said for stating your position and just sticking with it.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam salach.
